Dolutegravir did not increase the risk of high blood pressure during pregnancy in a large international study, but mildly raised blood pressure was common in young women with HIV, Professor Risa Hoffman reported on behalf of the IMPAACT 2010 study team at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) in Denver last week.

Switching to an integrase inhibitor around the time of the menopause was associated with accelerated weight gain in women with HIV when compared to pre-menopausal women with HIV, a retrospective cohort study has found. The study, conducted in the United States, was presented last week at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) in Denver by Dr Rebecca Abelman of University of California San Francisco.

A programme in rural Kenya and Uganda that has already demonstrated that a dynamic, person-centred HIV prevention intervention results in substantial increases in the numbers of people covered by PrEP or PEP, has now shown the added benefits of offering a choice between PrEP pills and PrEP injections.

An impressive 79% reduction in HIV incidence was seen between two directly comparable groups in a whole-population analysis from Australia, presented to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) this week by Dr Nicholas Medland. People who have received hepatitis C treatment and who were not adherent to PrEP were particularly vulnerable to acquiring HIV within a few years of receiving their first PrEP prescription.

A small proportion of children who start HIV treatment within the first two days of life may achieve ongoing viral suppression after stopping antiretrovirals, according to study results presented yesterday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024). While these promising findings hold clues for HIV cure research, such early therapy is out of reach for many, and treatment interruption remains risky without careful monitoring.

Men with HIV in the US’s largest care provider for people with HIV were more likely to be diagnosed late with prostate cancer and less likely to undergo testing that may warn of an increased prostate cancer risk, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) in Denver heard this week.

Three studies presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) in Denver this week showed that innovative service models can successfully deliver drug treatment for high blood pressure to people with HIV through HIV clinics or community health workers, and reduce blood pressure.

A demonstration project of oral PrEP for young women, conducted in six African countries with high HIV prevalence, achieved high levels of PrEP uptake and persistence, and good levels of adherence among its 3000 participants.

A once-weekly oral regimen can keep HIV suppressed as well as daily pills, according to study results presented today at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024).

Two long-acting antiretrovirals, lenacapavir (Sunlenca) and cabotegravir (Vocabria), may pair well with broadly neutralising antibodies for HIV treatment, according to two presentations yesterday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024).

The number of new HIV diagnoses has continued to drop steeply between 2012 and 2021 in US states with the highest coverage of PrEP (regular medication to prevent HIV), according to research presented by Dr Patrick Sullivan at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) yesterday.

Two antiretrovirals with the potential for once-weekly oral dosing were unveiled at CROI 2024 in Denver on Monday. The new agents have undergone phase 1 studies, which establish appropriate dosing and weed out drugs which have serious side effects. Before becoming available for prescription, drugs go through two further phases of testing to establish their efficacy, dosing and safety. During these stages of development many products fall by the wayside either because unexpected problems arise or the commercial priorities of the pharmaceutical company change.

This week’s Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024) heard the latest data from research involving giving people a cocktail of three broadly neutralising antibodies (bnAbs), which aidsmap last reported on two years ago.

En vísperas del Día Internacional de la Mujer, que se celebra el 8 de marzo, ONUSIDA hace un llamamiento a la protección de los derechos de las mujeres para proteger su salud.

Analysis of tissue samples from six people with HIV who passed away due to terminal illness revealed varying concentrations of dolutegravir in different body sites and organs. Unsurprisingly, drug concentrations in the brain and the spinal cord were lower than in other body sites, but concentrations across different parts of the brain were evenly distributed. In contrast, the intestines and the spleen – where a large portion of the immune system resides – were found to have high drug concentrations.

Services providing post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) need to build stronger connections between these two ways of preventing HIV infection, so as to help people who’ve used one method to access the other, according to experts at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024). [SHORTCUT id=”33793”]

Taking the antibiotic doxycycline after sex appears to have lowered the incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in San Francisco, according to researchers who presented some of the earliest real-world data yesterday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2024). [SHORTCUT id="35118"]

A year ago, the DoxyVAC study’s interim results raised hopes that by combining post-exposure prophylaxis using the antibiotic doxycycline (‘doxyPEP’) with a candidate vaccine against gonorrhoea, cases of all three of the most important bacterial sexually transmitted infections could be substantially reduced in gay and bisexual men.

Injectable treatment with cabotegravir and rilpivirine proved just as effective in maintaining viral suppression as standard oral antiretroviral treatment in a large trial in Africa, despite less intensive viral load monitoring than previous studies, Professor Nicholas Paton of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reported at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver on Monday.

Young people living with HIV in South Africa recently identified their priority research questions as part of an approach which moves away from biomedical research being led by researchers to communities taking the lead. Their priorities were published in PLOS Global Public Health.